Leucothea & Palaemon

Leucothea, the 'White Goddess', was once the mortal Ino, a princess of Thebes and the aunt and nurse of the infant Dionysus. Driven mad by Hera, she leapt into the sea with her young son — and the gods, in pity, transformed them into kindly sea-deities: Leucothea and the boy Palaemon (the Roman Portunus), saviours of sailors in distress.

It was Leucothea who, in Homer's Odyssey, rose from the waves to give the shipwrecked Odysseus her veil and bear him safe to shore. The Orphic hymns honour mother and son together as gentle powers of the deep who rescue those in peril upon the sea — mortals lifted, through suffering, into the company of the gods.